TELPHERAGE IN PRACTICAL USE. 



383 



were made with, the Sussex Portland Cement Company for build- 

 ing a telpher line to carry clay from the clay -pits on Lord Hamp- 

 den's estate at Glynde, in Sussex, to the Glynde Railway station. 

 While this work was in progress, Prof. Jenkin died, and was 

 succeeded as engineer of the Telpherage Company by Prof. Perry, 

 under whose direction the line was completed. It was put in 

 operation October 17, 1885. The general appearance of the Glynde 

 telpher line is shown in Fig. 1, and the following description of it 



Fig. 1.— Part of the Telpher Line at Glynde. 



is based upon lectures delivered by Prof. Jenkin and Prof. Perry. 

 The structure consists of a line of posts, eighteen feet high and 

 sixty-six feet apart, with cross-heads eight feet long at the top. 

 Instead of a cable, as used in the wire-rope haulage system, it was 

 found better to have round steel rods, three quarters of an inch 

 thick, running from post to post for the buckets, or " skeps," to 

 travel on. The ends of the rods are fastened to cast-iron saddles. 

 As the train of skeps runs on a single rail, a double track, or two 

 lines of rods, can be supported at the two ends of the cross-heads 

 on the single line of posts. As would be expected, these slender 

 rods sag somewhat under the weight of the loaded skeps, but the 

 trains are made of the length either of one span or two spans, so 

 that the part of the train coming up out of the depression is 

 helped on by the weight of the part just going down into it. The 

 sagging makes the mechanical resistance but little more than is 

 experienced in hauling a train of the same weight along a rigid 

 track, while the use of flexible rods enables the road to be built 



